Bachelor's · earnings grade

Is a Design and Applied Arts degree worth it?

Graduates earn a median $35,630 two years after finishing, more than 40% of bachelor's majors. Measured across 683 US programmes by the Department of Education — real graduate pay, not survey answers.

C

The verdict on the money

It pays around the middle. What you earn will depend more on where you study and what you do with it than on the subject label.

Median earnings $35,630 2 years after finishing · per graduate
Typical range $29,685–$39,369 middle half of US programmes
Over no degree — vs $39,520 high-school median
Graduates a year 19,612 683 programmes

Where a Design and Applied Arts degree pays best US programmes ranked on their own graduates' median earnings two years out.

#University1 yr out2 yrs out3 yrs outGraduates/yr
1 Carnegie Mellon University cost & debt at this university → $85,041 $89,859 $106,086 42
2 Northeastern University cost & debt at this university → $45,115 $59,124 $60,016 40
3 University of Washington-Seattle Campus $49,494 $57,318 $63,432 36
4 The University of Texas at Austin cost & debt at this university → $53,135 $55,151 $59,658 44
5 San Jose State University cost & debt at this university → $46,596 $52,524 $79,603 222
6 Chapman University cost & debt at this university → $44,707 $52,107 $63,526 26
7 University of California-Irvine cost & debt at this university → not published $52,107 $66,421 —
8 State University of New York at New Paltz cost & debt at this university → $29,623 $51,273 $47,476 35
9 Art Center College of Design $40,017 $50,856 $57,513 245
10 University of Florida cost & debt at this university → $43,267 $50,060 $55,526 54
11 Wentworth Institute of Technology cost & debt at this university → $50,498 $49,939 $58,412 56
12 California Institute of the Arts cost & debt at this university → not published $49,840 not published 12

What this figure does and does not tell you

Two medians are worth separating. $35,630 is what the typical graduate earns — each programme counted in proportion to how many students it graduates. $34,187 is what the typical programme reports, counting a class of twenty the same as a class of two thousand. The weighted figure is higher here, which means the larger programmes in this field are the better-paying ones.

It is the median of what real graduates of this exact major earned, taken from tax records two years after they completed. It is not a starting salary, not an average of job adverts, and not a projection. The median bachelor's major in this dataset reports $36,497, so Design and Applied Arts sits below the middle by $867.

Two years is early in a career. Fields with long training pipelines — medicine, law, research — look weaker at this point than they will at ten, while trades and applied technical fields peak sooner. Read a low figure in a long-pipeline subject as "slow start", not "bad degree".

There is no debt figure here on purpose. The Department of Education publishes earnings by field of study but not borrowing, so nobody can honestly tell you the debt of a specific major. Debt is published per institution — that is where our university cost pages carry it.

Design and Applied Arts at other levels

Master's — $45,696 (C)

Majors that pay more at this level Closest first — useful if you are still choosing.

Microbiology — $34,207 Community Organization and Advocacy — $34,290 Criminal Justice — $34,420 Environmental & Natural Resources Management — $34,527 Geological — $34,615 Computer Software and Media Applications — $34,963

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Design and Applied Arts: the questions people ask

How much do Design and Applied Arts graduates earn?
The median bachelor's graduate earns $35,630 two years after finishing (weighting each programme by how many students it graduates), across 305 US programmes that publish the figure. One year out it is $34,183.
Is a Design and Applied Arts degree worth it?
It pays around the middle. What you earn will depend more on where you study and what you do with it than on the subject label.
What is the salary range for Design and Applied Arts?
Half of US programmes report medians between $29,685 and $39,369. Where you study moves this figure more than most applicants expect.
How many people graduate in Design and Applied Arts each year?
About 19,612 students complete a bachelor's in this field each year across 683 US programmes.
Does this include student debt?
No — and deliberately. The Department of Education publishes earnings by field of study but not debt, so any "debt by major" figure you see elsewhere is an estimate. Debt is published per institution, which is why our university pages carry it and this page does not.
All degree grades Highest paying majors Most popular majors University costs & payback

Source: US Department of Education College Scorecard, field-of-study earnings (median earnings of graduates who received federal financial aid, measured 1–3 years after completion). Figures are per major and credential level, pooled across US programmes. Information only, not financial advice.